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AUTHOR: 


SANTAYANA,  GEORGE 


TITLE: 


THE  GENTEEL 

TRADITION  IN. 

PLACE: 

[BERKELEY] 

DA  TE : 

1911 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 

BIBLIOGRAPHIC  MICROFORM  TARGET 


Master  Negative  # 


Original  Material  as  Filmed  -  Existing  Bibliographic  Record 


Santayana,  George,  1863-  1952  !    }^^^ 

. .  .The  genteel  tradition  in  American  philospjj^ 

ihyi  George  Santayana.        i Berkeley,  University 'of^ 

California  press j   1911. 

p.  (367, -380.   22^^.  _  ^ 

From  University  of  California  chronicle,  1911, 
V.  13,  no.  4. 

D191Sa5  Copy  in  Butler.  1911. 
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BERKELEY 

THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1911 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  CHRONICLE 


Vol.  XIII 


OCTOBER,  1911 


No.  4 


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THE  GENTEEL  TRADITION  IN  AMERICAN 

PHILOSOPHY* 


George  Santayana 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen:     The  privilege  of    addressing 
you  to-day  is  very  welcome  to  me,  not  merely  for  the  honor 
of  it,  which  is  great,  nor  for  the  pleasures  of  travel,  which 
are  many,  when  it  is  California  that  one  is  visiting  for 
the  first  time,  but  also  because  there  is  something  I  have 
long  wanted  to  say  which  this  occasion  seems  particularly 
favorable  for  saying.     America  is  still  a  young  country, 
and  this  part  of  it  is  especially  so ;  and  it  would  have  been 
nothing  extraordinary  if,  in  this  young  country,  material 
preoccupations  had  altogether  absorbed  people 's  mindsQnd 
they  had  been  too  much  engrossed  in  living  to  reflect  upon 
lifejor  to  have  any  philosophy.     The  opposite,  however, 
is  the  case.    Not  only  have  you  already  found  time  to  phil- 
osophize  in   California,   as  your  society  proves,   but  the 
eastern  colonists  from  the  very  beginning  were  a  sophisti- 
cated race.    As  much  as  in  clearing  the  land  and  fighting 
the  Indians  they  were  occupied,  as  they  expressed  it,  in 
wrestling  with  the  Lord.     The  country  was  new,  but  the 
race  was  tried,  chastened,  and  full  of  solemn  memories. 
It  was  an  old  wine  in  new  bottles ;  and  America  did  not 
have  to  wait  for  its  present  universities,  with  their  depart- 
ments of  academic  philosophy,  in  order  to  possess  a  living 
philosophy,— to  have  a  distinct  vision  of  the  universe  and 
definite  convictions  about  human  destiny. 

*  Address  deUvered  before  the  Philosophical  Union,  Aug.  25,  1911. 


/• 


3  isis^iS 


358 


UNIVEB8ITY  CHBONICLE. 


^ 


.-t«.jd>*\ 


^'- 


\\ 


Now  this  situation  is  a  singular  and  remarkable  one, 
and  has  many  consequences,  not  all  of  which  are  equally 
fortunate.    America  is  a  young  country  with  an  old  men- 
tality: it  has  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  a  child  carefully 
brought  up,  and  thoroughly  indoctrinated;  it  has  been  a 
wise  child.  \But  a  wise  child,  anjold  head  on  young  shoul- 
ders, always  has  a  comk  andL  ^  unpromising  side.     The 
H  wisdom  is  a  Tittk  .thin".and  verbal,  not  aware  of  its  full  - 
U  meaning  and  grounds;  and  physical  and  emotional  growth 
may  be  "stunted  by  it,  or  even  deranged.    (Or  when  the 
child  is  too  vigorous  for  that,  he  will  develop  a  fresh  men- 
l.    tality  of  ^:"f  ^"^"i  ^"^  ftt  W  nhsprvfttinns  and  actual  in- 
stincts ;"^and  this  fresh  mentality  will   interfere  with  the 
♦     traditional  meat dit^^j_fljad-i.end  to  reduce  it  to  something 
perfunctory,  conventional,  and  .perhaps  secretly  despised. 
r  A  philosophy  is  not  genuine  unless  it  inspires  and  expresses 
\thejife  of  those  who  cherish  it^  I  do  not  think  the  hered- 
itary philosophy  of  America  has  done  much  to  atrophy 
the  natural  activities  of  the  inhabitants;  the  wise  child 
has  not  missed  the  joys  of  youth  or  of  manhood ;  but  what 
has  happened  is  that  the  hereditary  philosophy  has  grown 
stale,  and  that  the  academic  philosophy  afterwards  devel- 
oped has  caught  the  stale  odor  from  it.     Am§.dca-is  not 
simply,  as  I  said  a  moment  ago,  a  young  country  with  an 
old  mentality :  it  is^a^jountry  with  two  ^mentalities^  one 
a  surxiiaLeLtlifi,J?^ta-aiid-Standards  of  the  fathers,,  the 
nfW^^n^yprPssinn  nf  the  instinctSj^  practice,  and  discov- 
eries ot  the  .^UJlgfij:«g£rLfirations.     In  all  the  higher  things 
of  the^juiad — in  religion,  in  literature,  in  the  moral  emo- 
tions—it  is  the  hereditary  spirit  that  still  prevails,  so  much 
so  that  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  finds  that  America  is  a  hundred 
years  behind  the  times.  \  'jThe  truth  is  that  that  one-half 
of  the  American  mind,  that  not  occupied  intensely  in  prac- 
Itical  affairs,  has  remained,  I  will  not  say  high-and-dry, 
but  slightly  becalmed;  it  has  floated  gently  in  the  back- 
water,  while,   alongside,   in   invention   and   industry   and 
social  organization  the  other  half  of  the  mind  was  leap- 


i    > 


OENTEEL  TBADITION  IN  AUEBICAN  PHILOSOPET.     359 

ing  down  a  sort  of  Niagara  Rapids.J  ^i8,.(iiyision_jna2L 
be   found  symbolized  in  American   architecture:   a  neat 
\  reproduction  of  the  colonial  mansion-with  some  modem 
comforts  introduced  surregtitifusly— stands  beside  the  sky- 
scraper.   Th^jiwei-ican  RilUnhabits  the  sky-scraper;  the 
American  intellect  inhabits  the  colonial  mansion.    The  one 
is  the  sphere  of  the  American  man;  the  other,  at  least 
predominanlly,  of^the  American,  woman.     The  one  is  all 
'  aggressive'enterprise ;  the  otheti*  all  genteel iraditoon.       . 
Now,  with  your  permission,  I  should  like  to  analyze 
more  fully  how  this  interesting  situation  has  arisen,  how 
it  is  qualified,  and  whither  it  tends.    And  in  the  first  place 
we  should  remember  what,  precisely,  that  philosophy,  was 
which  the  first  settlers  broughtjvithjlwmjnto^^ 
In'rtriJtaSrthere  w^iffiSfeTESninaautwe  may  confine 
our  attention  to  what  Ij£m.jeall\Calvinismj  since  it  is  on 
this  that  the  current  academie_EhilosoEh;LhSsieen  jrafted. 
I  do  not  mean  exaltb^TET^ahiiisia^LCaMn^  otj^^    of  /y 
Jonathan  Edwards  ;'•  for  in  their  systems  there  was,  much  ^. 
thaT  was  not  pure-philosophy,  but  rather  faith  in  the  ex- 
ternals and_iistory  of  revelation.  \Jewishand  Christian 
r^feliiti^  was  interpreted  by  J^^em^JUXMiBM^^m  the 
spiritbf  a-^articular  philogQphi::.-Wliich  might  have,.arisen 
under  any  sV^SO^,a5S2SWted  with  any-otLer.pllgion 
(a^ell  as^with  Protestant  Christianity.    In  fact,  the  phil- 
oso^cal  principle  of  Calvinism  appears  also  in  the  Koran 
in  Spinoza,  and  in  Cardinal  Newman;  and  persons  with 
no  very  distinctive  Christian  belief,  like  Carlyle  or  like 
Professor  Royce,  may  be  nevertheless,  philosophically,  per- 
fect CalvinistB.    tealvinism^teken  in  this^sense, jsjn  ex- 
pression  of  the  j^^nSecTcSSiSMTt  is  aje^tt^L-the 
?fOTlT^E2Eu^ar3gow2^t2SBSia£S.J£^i^  embraces^  if 
it'takes  itself  seriously,  as,  being  agonized, -oi._caurs&  it 
must     Calvinism,  essentially,  asserts  three  things :  .thatsm 
exists,  itEt  sin  is  punished,\«Jid  that  it  is  *eaut,ful.4hat 
sinVhould  exist  to  be  punished.  The  heart  of  the  Calvinist 
is  thefefofedividia  between  tragic.concern  at_bis  own  mis- 


O'OtJ'^-****^ 


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360 


UNIVEBSITY  CHRONICLE, 


erable  condition,  and  tragic  exultation  about  the  universe 
at  large.  He  oscillates  between  a  profound  abasement  and 
a  paradoxical  elation  of  the  spirit.   ^  be  a  Calvinist  phil- 

Eiophically  is  to  feel  a  fierce  pleasur?ln  tHe^xistence  of 
isery,  ^specially  of  one*s  own^  in  that  this^  mjfiftry  .seems 
I  TYinnifotat  th^  fapf  t,l]ftt  the  Absolutc  js  irresponsible  or 
nfinite  or  holy. J  Human  nature,  it  teels,  is  totally  de- 
pravedTtb  have  the  instincts  and  motives  that  we  neces- 
sarily have  is  a  great  scandal,  and  we  must  suffer  for  it; 
> Vmt  f,|igf  fiPflTi^fl)^i«-rpqnigitA,  siucc  otherwisc  the  serious 
jimprirtance  of  bein^^  we  oyght  to^elvQu^(j|  not  have  been 

jvindicaifiiJ. 

To  those  of  us  who  have  not  an  agonized  conscience 
this  system  may  seem  fantastic  and  even  unintelligible; 
yet  it  is  logically  and  intently  thought  out  from  its  emo- 
tional premises.  It  can  take  permanent  possession  of  a 
deep  mind  here  and  there,  and  under  certain  conditions  it 
can  become  epidemic.  Imagine,  for  instance,  a  small  nation 
with  an  intense  vitality,  but  on  the  verge  of  ruin,  ecstatic 
and  distressful,  having  a  strict  and  minute  code  of  laws, 
that  paint  life  in  sharp  and  violent  chiaroscuro,  all  pure 
righteousness  and  black  abominations,  and  exaggerating  the 
consequences  of  both  perhaps  to  infinity.  Such  a  people; 
were  the  Jews  after  the  exile,  and  again  the  early  Pro- 
testants. If  such  a  people  is  philosophical  at  all,  it  will 
not  improbably  be  Calvinistic.  Even  in  the  early  Amer- 
ican communities  many  of  these  conditions  were  fulfilled. 
The  nation  was  small  and  isolated;  it  lived  under  pressure 
and  constant  trial;  it  was  acquainted  with  but  a  small 
range  of  goods  and  evils.  Vigilance  over  conduct  and  an 
absolute  demand  for  personal  integrity  were  not  merely 
traditional  things,  but  things  that  practical  sages,  like 
Franklin  and  Washington,  recommended  to  their  country- 
men, because  they  were  virtues  that  justified  themselves 
visibly  by  their  fruits.  (But  soon  these  happy  results  them- 
selves helped  to  relax  the  pressure  of  external  circum- 
stances, and  indirectly  the  pressure  of  the  agonized  con- 


GENTEEL  TRADITION  IN  AMERICAN  PHILOSOPHY.     361 

science  within.  J  The  nation  became  numerous ;  it  ceased 
to  be  either  et^tktia  or  distressful ;  the  high  social  morality 
which  on  the  whole  it  preserved  took  another  color  ;^  people 
remained  honest  and  helpful  out  of  good  sense  anS  good 
will  rather  than  out  of  scrupulous  adherence  to  any  fixed 
principlesTJ  They  retained  their  instinct  for  order,  and 
often  created  order  with  surprising  quickness;  but  the 
sanctity  of  law,  to  be  obeyed  for  its  own  sake,  began  to 
escape  them;  it  seemed  too  unpractical  a  notion,  and  not 
quite  serious.  In  fact,  the  second  and  native-born  Amer- 
icgjianentality  be5a£5aIftk6^a|Tc.    Tfe  semirufroitufealty 


evaporated.  Nature,  in  the  words  of^merson,  was  all 
beauty  and  commodity;  and  wHUe  operating  on  IFTabor- 
iously,  and  drawing  quick  returns,  the  American  began  to 
drink  in  inspiration  from  it  aesthetically.  At  the  same 
time,  in  so  broad  a  continent,  he  had  elbow-room.  His 
neighbors  helped  more  than  they  hindered  him;  he  wished 
their  number  to  increase.  Good-will  became  the  great 
American  virtue;  and  a  passion  arose  for  counting  heads, 
and  square  miles,  and  cubic  feet,  and  minutes  saved — as 
if  there  had  been  anything  to  save  them  for.  How  strange 
to  the  American  now  that  saying  of  Jonathan  Edwards, 
that  men  are  naturally  God's  enemies!  Yet  that  is  an 
axiom  to  any  intelligent  Calvinist,  though  the  words  he 
uses  may  be  different.  If  you  told  the  modern  American 
that  he  is  totally  depraved,  he  would  think  you  were  joking, 
as  he  himself  usually  is.  He  is  convinced  that  he  always 
has  been,  and  always  will  be,  victoric^  and  blameless. 

Calvinism  thus  lost  its  basis  in  .S^rican  life.  Some 
emotional  natures,  indeed,  reverted  in  their  religious  re- 
vivals or  private  searchings  of  heart  to  the  sources  of  the 
tradition;  for  any  of  the  radical  points  of  view  in  phil- 
osophy may  cease  to  be  prevalent,  buTf  none  can  cease  to 
be  possible.  Other  natures,  more  sensitive  to  the  moral  and 
liferary  influences  of  the  world,  preferred  to  abandon  parts 
of  their  philosophy,  hoping  thus  to  reduce  the  distance 
which  should  separate  the  remainder  from  real  life. 


^:y 


V' 


362 


UNIVEBSITT  CHBONICLE, 


GENTEEL  TBADITION  IN  AMERICAN  PHILOSOPHY.     363 


\ 


/ 


Meantime,  if  anybody  arose  with  a  special  sensibility 
or  a  technical  genius,  he  was  in  great  straits;  not  being 
fed  sufficiently  by  the  world,  he  was  driven  in  upon  his 
o^Ti  resources.     The  three  American  writers  whose  per- 
sonal endowment  was  perhaps  the  finest— Poe,  Hawthorne, 
and  Emerson— had  all  a  certain  starved  and  abstract  qual- 
ity.    They  could  not  retail  the   genteel  tradition;  they 
were  too  keen,  too  perceptive,  and  too  independent  for  that. 
But  life  offered  them  little  digestible  material,  nor  were 
they  naturally  voracious.    They  were  fastidious,  and  under 
the  circumstances  they  were  starved.    Emerson,  to  be  sure,^ 
fed  on  books.     There  was  a  great  catholicity  in  his  read- 
ing ;  and  he  showed  a  fine  tact  in  his  comments,  and  in  his 
way  of  appropriating  what  he  read.     But  he  read  trans- 
cendentally,  not  historically,  to  learn  what  he  himself  felt, 
not  what  others  might  have  felt  before  him.  fAnd  to  feed 
on  books,  fpr^a  philosopher  or  a  poet,  is  stm  to  starve. 
Books  can  help  him  tcTacquire  form,  or  to  avoid  pitfalls; 
they  cannot  supply  hun  witTi' substance,  if  lie  is  to  have 
any.     Therefore  the  genius  of  Poe  and  Hawthorne,  and 
even  of  Emerson,  was  employed  on  a  sort  of  inner  play, 
or  digestion  of  vacancy.    It  was  a  refined  labor,  but  it  was 
in  danger  of  being  morbid,  or  tinkling,  or  self-indulgent.  | 
It  was  a  play  of   intra-mental  rhymes.     Their  mind  wasj 
like  an  old  music-box,  full  of   tender  echoes  and  quaint  i 
fancies.    These  fancies  expressed  their  personal  genius  sin-  \ 
cerely,  as  dreams  may;  but  they  were  arbitrary  fancies^ 
/  in  comparison  with  what  a  real  observer  would  have  said 
in  the  premises.     Their  manner,  in  a  word,  was  subjec-, 
tive.     In  their  own  persons  they  escaped  the  mediocrity 
of  the  genteel  tradition,  but  they  supplied  nothing  to  sup- 
plant it  in  other  minds. 

The  churches,  likewise,  although  they  modified  their 
spirit,  had  no  philosophy  to  offer  save  a  selection  or  a  new 
emphasis  on  parts  of  what  Calvinism  contained.  The  the- 
ology of  Calvin,  we  must  remember,  had  much  in  it  be- 
sides philosophical  Calvinism.    A  Christian  tenderness,  and 


I''- 


a  hope  of  grace  for  the  individual,  came  to  mitigate  its 
sardonic  optimism;  and  it  was  these  evangelical  elements 
that  the  Calvinistic  churches  now  emphasized,  seldom  and 
with  blushes  referring  to  hell-fire  or  infant  damnation. 
Yet/philosophTd^Cal^ms^  with  a  theory  of  life  that  would  A 
perfectly  j us tiT/  hell-fire  and  infant  damnation  if  they 
happened  to  /exist,  still  dominates  the  traditional  meta- 
physics. It'^s  an  ingredient,  and  the  decisive  ingredient, 
in  what  calk  itseli^  idealismj  \But  in  order^to^e  just  what 


part  Calvinism  plays  in  current  idealism,  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  distinguish  ^the  other  chief  element  in  that  complex 
system,  namely^JLraScen3gntalism . 

"ranscenaentaiism^  the  philosophy  which  the  romantic 
era  produced  in  Germany,  and  independently,  I  believe,  in 
America  also.  Transcendentalism  proper,  like  romanticism, 
is  not  any  particular  set  of  dogmas  about  what  things  exist ; 
it  is  not  a  system  of  the  universe  regarded  as  a  fact,  or  as 
a  collection  of  facts.  It  is^  a  method,  a  point  of  view^  f rom 
which  anjT  world,  no  niatter  what  it  might  contain^  could 
be  approached  by  a  self-conscious  observerj  \!Eransc^jien- 
talism  IS  systematic  subjectivism.}  Itstudi^  the  perspec- 
tives of  knowledge-,. .aa. they  radiate  from  the  self;  it  is  a 
plan  of  those  avenues  of  inference  by  which  our  ideas  of 
things  must  be  reached,  if  they  are  to  afford  any  system- 
atic or  distant  vistas.  In  other  words,  transcendentalism 
is  the  critical  logic  of  science.  Knowledge,  it  says,  has  a 
station,  as  in  a  watch-tower;  it  is  always  seated  here  and 
now,  in  the  self  of  the  moment.  The  past  and  the  future, 
things  inferred  and  things  conceived,  lie  around  it,  painted 
as  upon  a  panorama.  They  cannot  be  lighted  up  save  by 
some  centrifugal  ray  of  attention  and  present  interest,  by 
some  active  operation  of  the  mind. 

This  is  hardly  the  occasion  for  developing  or  explaining 
this  delicate  insight ;  suffice  it  to  say,  lest  you  should  think 
later  that  I  disparage  transcendentalism,  that  as  a  method 
I  regard  it  as  correct  and,  when  once  suggested,  unforget- 
able.    I  regard  it  as  the  chief  contribution  made  in  modern 


/'.A. 


♦  * 


^YW*^"- 


364 


UNIVEBSITT  CHEONICLE. 


GENTEEL  TBADI TION  IN  AMEBIC  AN  PHILOSOPHY.     365 


'f 


I ' 


••'•• 


times  to  speculation.  T^nt  it  is  a  method-pnly^  an  attitude 
we  mav  always  assume  if  we  like  and  that  will  always  be 
legitimate.  It  is  no  answer,  and  involves  no  particular 
answgj^^OoJthequesd  What  exists;  in  what  order  is 

what  existsprodnced;  what  is  to  exist  in  the  future  ?  This 
question  must  be  answered  by  observing  the  object,  and 
tracing  humbly  the  movement  of  the  object.  It  cannot  be 
answered  at  njj^hy  hnrpinpf  ^-rt-^^^'^"^^  that 4his  job ject,  if 
di^tJSvereSTmjjst .h&-d4«oov^ed  by  som^bodyi  and  by  some- 
body wThoTias  an  interest  in  discovering  it.  Yet  the  Ger- 
mans who  first  gained  the  full  transcendental  insight  were 
iFomantic  people;  they  were  more  or  less  frankly  poets; 
they  were  colossal  egotists,  and  wished  to  m^e  not  only 
their  own  knowle^lge  but  tke  whole  universe  center  about. 
iems( 


"And  full  as  they  were  of  their  romantic  iso 
lation^andromiiticliberty,  it  occurred  to  them  to  imagine 
that  all  jpaHtyL-inight  be.4u  triftnacendenta^^  a  ro- 

[reamer  like  themselves;  naTTtyt.  it  might  l)e  just 
their  own'^arig^^ndf^^^^  «^^f  nnd.  thpULJlWii . jomantic 
t\r\  i\\\\\^^Xtrrr^£^ij^\i\\  '  \\  I  TranscgjqdenTAl  Jftgic,  the 
method  of  dig(?overy  f^r  the  ^^^^,  w««  ^  hppome  also  the 
iy.ofVin^nf  <>vnln^j()n  jp  r.afnrf^  and  hlstory.  \\Transcendental 
metEodj^so  abused,  produced  transcendental  myt'hj  'A^^CQn- 
«^ipnijmTgj>^^jti^^  T^TiT^lt^dge  was  turned"  into  a  sham 
system  of  natiire^  We  must  therefor^jistinguisli  sharply 

(if  tihP  iTif^lX^t.^  whifih  is  sig- 
nfffcant  and  potentially  correct,  from  the  various  trans-j 
cendental  systems  of  the  universe,  whishuaie  chimeras.. 

In  both  its  parts,  however,  transcendentalism  had  much 
to  recommend  it  to  American  philosophers,  for  the  trans- 
cendental method  appealed  to  the  individualistic  and  revo- 
lutionary temper  of  their  youth,  while  transcendental  myths 
enabled  them  to  find  a  new  status  for  their  inherited  the- 
ology, and  to  give  what  parts  of  it  they  cared  to  preserve 
some  semblance  of  philosophical  backing.  This  last  was 
the  use  to  which  the  transcendental  method  was  put  by 
Kant  himself,  who  first  brought  it  into  vogue,  before  the 


/ 


/ 


terrible  weapon  had  got  out  of  hand,  and  become  the  instru- 
ment of  pure  romanticism.    IFa^tcame,  he  himself  said, 
to  remove  knowledge  in  order  to  make  room   for  faith, 
whicimn  his  case  meant  faith  i^i^alvinism.    ^En  other 
words,  he  applied  the  transcendental  method  to  matters 
of  fact,  reducing  them  thereby  to  human  ideas,  in  order 
to  give  to  the  Calvinistic  postulates  of  conscience  a  meta- 
physicai  validity.    For  Kant  had  a  genteel  tradition  of  his 
own,  which  he  wished  to  remove  to  a  place  of  safety,  feeling 
that  the  empirical  world  had  become  too  hot  for  it;  and 
this  place  of  safetjfjvas^the  region  of  transcendental  mythj 
I  need  hardly  say  how  perfectly^  this  expedient  suited  the 
needs  of  philosophers  in  America,  and  it  is  no  accident  if 
the  influence  of  Kant  soon  became  dominant  here.     To 
embrace  this  philosophy  was  regarded  as  a  sign  of  pro- 
found metaphysical  insight,   although  the  most  mediocre 
minds  found  no  difficulty  in  embracing  it.  ,  In  truth  it 
was  a  sign  of  having  been  brought  up  in  the  genteel  tradi- 
tion, of  feeling  it  weak,  and  of  wishing  to  save  it^^  — ^ 
But  the  transcendental  method,  in  its  way,  was  also  / 
sympathetic  to  the  American  mind.     It  embodied,  in  a/     \\\ 
radical  form,  the  spirit  of  Protestantism  as  distinguished    -      \  \ 
from  its  inherited  doctrines ;  it  was  autonomous,  undis-  J       '^| 
mayed,  calmly  revolutionary;  it  f elt^ihat^Wiil, was.  de^er 
than  Intellect  ;i  it  focused  everything  here  and  now,  and    -^^\ 
asked  all  things  to  show  their  credentials  at  the  bar  of  the 
young  self,  and  to  prove  their  value  for  this  latest  born  .    ' 
moment.     These  things  are  truly  American;  they  would  ~^^ 
be  characteristic  of  any  young  society  with  a  keen  and        '' 
discursive  intelligence,  and  they  are  strikingly  exemplified 
in  the  thought  and  in  the  person  of  Emerson.     They  con- 
stitute  what   he   called  self-trust.     Self-trust,   like   other 
frajg^PTirloTitnl  iittitndp^   mnv  bo  expressed  in  metanhvsical 
fables.     TViP  rnmi^Trtic  Spirit  ma^Djaginf^  \U^\t  tft  hfi  an 
absolute.  JopecrcvoktBg  and  moldijQ^4he- plasti«-j£orid_to      ^}^ 
[pressitsuscaEjdngJDOi^ds.    But  for  a  pioneer  who  is  actu- 
irld-builder  this  metaphysical  illusion  has  a  partial 


*"".*-       --.^■*^-»    "**  *■"  * 

'J 


tJ 


^vw*^' 


366 


UNIVEBSITY  CHRONICLE. 


GENTEEL  TFADITION  IN  AMERICAN  PHILOSOPHY.     367 


warrant  in  historical  fact ;  far  more  warrant  than  it  could 
boast  of  in  the  fixed  and  articulated  society  of  Europe, 
among  the  moonstruck  rebels  and  sulking  poets  of  the 
romantic  era.  Emerson  was  a  shrewd  Yankee,  by  instinct 
on  the  winning  side ;  he  ^as  a  cheery,  child-like  soul,  im- 
pervious to  the  evidence  of  evil,  as  of  everything  that  it 
did  not  suit  his  transcendental  individuality  to  appreciate 
or  to  notice.  More,  perhaps,  than  anybody  that  has  ever 
lived,  he  practiced  the  transcendental  method  in  all  its 
purity.  He  had  no  system.  He  opened  his  eyes  on  the 
world  every  morning  with  a  fresh  sincerity,  marking  how 
things  seemed  to  him  then,  or  what  they  suggested  to  his 
spontaneous  fancy.  This  fancy,  for  being  spontaneous,  was 
not  always  novel ;  it  was  guided  by  the  habits  and  training 
of  his  mind,  which  were  those  of  a  preacher.  tYethe  never 
insisted  oii,lxia_notions  so  as_to^^  inta  settled 

dogmas ;  he  felt  in  his  bongjhat  they  were  mythsj  Some- 
times, indeed,  the  bad  example  of  other  transcendentalists, 
less  true  than  he  to  their  method,  or  the  pressing  questions 
of  unintelligent  people,  or  the  instinct  we  all  have  to  think 
our  ideas  final,  led  him  to  the  very  verge  of  system-making ; 
but  he  stopped  short.  Had  he  made  a  system  out  of  his 
notion  of  compensation,  or  the  over-soul,  or  spiritual  laws, 
the  result  would  have  been  as  thin  and  forced  as  it  is  in 
other  transcendental  systems.  But  he  coveted  truth;  and 
he  returned  to  experience,  to  history,  to  poetry,  to  the  nat- 
ural science  of  his  day,  for  new  starting-points  and  hints 
toward  fresh  transcendental  musings. 

To  covet  truth  is  a  very  distinguished  passion.  Every 
philosopher  says  he  is  pursuing  the  truth,  but  this  is  seldom 
the  case.  As  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell  has  observed,  one  reason 
why  philosophers  often  fail  to  reach  the  truth  is  that  often 
they  do  not  desire  to  reach  it.  Those  who  are  genuinely 
concerned  in  discovering  what  happens  to  be  true  are  rather 
the  men  of  science,  the  naturalists,  the  historians ;  and  ordi- 
narily they  discover  it,  according  to  their  lights.  The 
truths  they  find  are  never  complete,  and  are  not  always 


\ 


important;  but  they  are  integral  parts  of  the  truth,  facts 
and  circumstances  that  help  to  fill  in  the  picture,  and  that 
no  later  interpretation  can  invalidate  or  afford  to  contra- 
dict. But  professional  philosophers  are  usually  only  schol- 
astics: that  is,  Ithe^  are*'absorbed  in  defending  some  vested 
illusion  or  some  eloquent  idea.  Like  lawyers  or  detectives, 
they  study  the  case  for  which  they  are  retained,  to  see  how 
much  evidence  or  semblance  of  evidence  they  can  gather 
for  the  defense,  and  how  much  prejudice  they  can  raise 
against  the  witnesses  for  the  prosecution;  for  they  know 
they  are  defending  prisoners  suspected  by  the  world,  and 
perhaps  by  their  own  good  sense,  of  falsification.  They 
do  not  covet  truth,  but  victory  and  the  dispelling  of  their 
own  dou^taJ  What  they  defend  is  some  system,  that  is, 
some  view  about  the  totality  of  things,  of  which  men  are 
actually  ignorant.  No  system  would  ever  have  been  framed 
if  people  had  been  simply  interested  in  knowing  what  is 
true,  whatever  it  may  be.  What  produces  systems  is  the 
interest  in  maintaining  flfygingf  all  f>(||nPT^at}iflt  Romp  favor- 

ite_0r   inherited   Id^U   nf   nnrs    is   sii%jpnt    f^i^H    r\ffht.      A 

system  may  contain  an  account  of  many  things  which,  in 
detail,  are  true  enough;  but  as  a  system,  covering  infinite 
possibilities  that  neither  our  experience  nor  our  logic  can 
prejudge,  it  must^be  a  work  of  imagination^and  a  piece 
of  human  soliloguy.  It  may  be  expressive  of  human  ex- 
perience, it  may  be  poetical;  but  how  should  any  one  who 
really  coveted  truth  suppose  that  it  was  true? 

Emerson  had  no  system;  and  his  coveting  truth  had 
another  exceptional  consequence:  he  was  detached,  un- 
worldly, contemplative.  When  he  came  out  of  the  con- 
venticle or  the  reform  meeting,  or  out  of  the  rapturous 
close  atmosphere  of  the  lecture-room,  he  heard  nature  whis- 
pering to  him :  * '  Why  so  hot,  little  sir  ? ' '  No  doubt  the 
spirit  or  energy  of  the  world  is  what  is  acting  in  us,  as  the 
sea  is  what  rises  in  every  little  wave ;  but  it  passes  through 
us,  and  cry  out  as  we  may,  it  will  move  on.  Our^priyilege 
is  to  have  perceived  it  as  it  moves.   vQur  dignity  is  not  in 


"1 


0 


h     « 


368 


UNIVEB8ITY  CEEONICLE, 


\ 


•^"  y-"    w^*'v^ 


»4 


1^     f 


• 


what  we^do,  but.in  wjist.we  underetandj  The  whole  world 
ITdoing  things.  We  are  turning  in  that  vortex ;  yet  within 
us  is  silent  observation,  the  speculative  eye  before  which 
all  passes,  which  bridges  the  distances  and  compares  the 
combatants.  On  this  side  of  his  genius  Emerson  broke 
away  from  all  conditions  of  age  or  country  and  represented 
nothing  except  intelligence  itself. 

There  was  another  element  in  Emerson,  curiously  com- 
bined with  transcendentalism,  namely,  his  love  and  respect 
for  Nature.  Nature,  for  the  transcendentalist,  is  precious 
because  it  is  his  own  work,  a  mirror  in  which  he  looks  at 
himself  and  says  (like  a  poet  relishing  his  own  verses), 
*  *  What  a  genius  I  am !  Who  would  have  thought  there  was 
such  stuff  in  me  r '  And  the  philosophical  egotist  finds  in 
his  doctrine  a  ready  explanation  of  whatever  beauty  and 
commodity  nature  actually  has.  No  wonder,  he  says  to 
himself,  that  nature  is  sympathetic,  since  I  made  it.  And 
such  a  view,  one-sided  and  even  fatuous  as  it  may  be,  un- 
doubtedly sharpens  the  vision  of  a  poet  and  a  moralist  to 
all  that  is  inspiriting  and  symbolic  in  the  natural  world. 
Emerson  was  particularly  ingenious  and  clear-sighted  in 
feeling  the  spiritual  uses  of  fellowship  with  the  elements. 
This  is  something  in  which  all  Teutonic  poetry  is  rich  and 
which  forms,  I  think,  the  most  genuine  and  spontaneous 
part  of  modern  taste,  and  especially  of  American  taste. 
Just  as  some  people  are  naturally  enthralled  and  refreshed 
by  music,  so  others  are  by  landscape.  Music  and  landscape 
make  up  the  spiritual  resourfi*^«  ^f  tbftfP  w^"  cannot  or  dare 
not  express  their  unfulfilled  ideals  in  words.  \  Serious  po- 
^tlYi  profound  religron_LCalvinism,  for  instance)  are'the 
f  joys  of  an  mahappiupss  that  Jl^nfgssesjtself ;  but  when  a 
\  genteel  tradition  forbids  people  to  confess  that  they  are 
J  unhappy,  serious  poetry  and  profound  religion  are  closed 
j  to  them  by  that ;  and  since  human  life,  in  its  depths,  can-  ^ 
'  not  then_expre^  itself  openly,  imagination  is  driven  for( 
comfort  into  abstract  arts,  where  human  circumstances  are 
lost  sighT'of ,  and  human   problems  dissolve  in  a  purer 


V. 


GENTEEL  T  \l  ABIT  ION  IN  AMEBIC  AN  PHILOSOPHY.     369 

medium.  The  pressure  of  care  is  thus  relieved,  without 
its  quietus  being  found  in  intelligence.  To  understand  one- 
self JS  thg^  r^^ftSin   ^^r^   of  f*nn<;r^]^|inn  :  \to   eludc   QfiCSelf  is 

tfie  romantic.  In  the  presence  of  mnsifi  or  landsfiapf  h^pian 
experience  p,l^|^^^*Tra^fj  •SndlEus^romjm^  ifii  thfi  bo^^ 

between  tra^.^^^T^^Ti^f^l  and  naturalistic  sentiment. 


Have  there  been,  we  may  ask,  any  successful  efforts 
to  escape  from  the  genteel  tradition,  and  to  express  some- 
thing worth  expressing  behind  its  back?  This  might  well 
not  have  occurred  as  yet;  but  America  is  so  precocious,  it 
has  been  trained  by  the  genteel  tradition  to  be  so  wise  for 
its  years,  that  some  indications  of  a  truly  native  philosophy 
and  poetry  are  already  to  be  found.  I  might  mention  the 
humorists,  of  whom  you  here  in  California  have  had  your 
share.  The  humorists,  however,  only  half  escape  the  genteel, 
tradition;  their  humor  would  lose  its  savor  if  thev  had 
wholly  escaped  it.  They  point  to  what  contradicts  it  in 
the  facts;  but  not  in  order  to  abandon  the  genteel  tradi- 
tion, for  they  have  nothing  solid  to  put  in  its  place.  When 
they  point  out  how  ill  many  facts  fit  into  it,  they  do  not 
clearly  conceive  that  this  militates  against  the  standard, 
but  think  it  a  funny  perversity  in  the  facts.  Of  course, 
did  they  earnestly  respect  the  genteel  tradition,  such  an 
incongruity  would  seem  to  them  sad,  rather  than  ludicrous. 
Perhaps  the  prevalence  of  humor  in  America,  in  and  out 
of  season,  may  be  taken  as  one  more  evidence  that  the 
genteel  tradition  is  present  pervasively,  but  everywhere 
weak.  Similarly  in  Italy,  during  the  Renaissance,  the 
Catholic  tradition  could  not  be  banished  from  the  intellect, 
since  there  was  nothing  articulate  to  take  its  place;  yet 
its  hold  on  the  heart  was  singularly  relaxed.  The  conse- 
quence was  that  humorists  could  regale  themselves  with  the 
foibles  of  monks  and  of  cardinals,  with  the  credulity  of 
fools,  and  the  bogus  miracles  of  the  saints;  not  intending 
to  deny  the  theory  of  the  church,  but  caring  for  it  so  little 
at  heart,  that  they  could  find  it  infinitely  amusing  that  it 


t 


370 


UNIVEBSITY  CHBONICLE. 


should  be  contradicted  in  men's  lives,  and  ihat  no  harm 
should  come  of  it.  So  when  Mark  Twain  says,  **I  was 
born  of  poor  but  dishonest  parents,*'  the  humor  depends 
on  the  parody  of  the  genteel  Anglo-Saxon  convention  that 
it  is  disreputable  to  be  poor;  but  to  hint  at  the  hoUowness 
of  it  would  not  be  amusing  if  it  did  not  remain  at  bottom 
one's  habitual  conviction. 

The  one  American  writer  who  has  left  the  genteel  tra- 
dition entirely  behind  is  perhaps  Walt  Whitman.  For 
this  reason  educated  Americans  find  him  rather  an  unpal- 
atable person,  who  they  sincerely  protest  ought  not  to  be 
taken  for  a  representative  of  their  culture;  and  he  cer- 
tainly should  not,  because  their  culture  is  so  genteel  and 
traditional.  But  the  foreigner  may  sometimes  think  other- 
wise, since  he  is  looking  for  what  may  have  arisen  in 
America  to  express,  not  the  polite  and  conventional  Amer- 
ican mind,  but  the  spirit  and  the  inarticulate  principles 
that  animate  the  community,  on  which  its  own  genteel 
mentality  seems  to  sit  rather  lightly.  When  the  foreigner 
opens  the  pages  of  Walt  Whitman,  he  thinks  that  he  has 
come  at  last  upon  something  representative  and  original. 
In  Walt  Whitman  democracy  is  carried  into  psychology 
and  morals.  The  various  sights,  moods,  and  emotions  are 
given  each  one  vote;  they  are  declared  to  be  all  free  and 
equal,  and  the  innumerable  common-place  moments  of  life 
are  suffered  to  speak  like  the  others.  Those  moments  for- 
merly reputed  great  are  not  excluded,  but  they  are  made 
to  march  in  the  ranks  with  their  companions,— plain  foot- 
soldiers  and  servants  of  the  hour.  Nor  does  the  refusal 
to  discriminate  stop  there;  we  must  carry  our  principle 
further  down,  to  the  animals,  to  inanimate  nature,  to  the 
cosmos  as  a  whole.  Whitman  became  a  pantheist;  but  his 
pantheism,  unlike  that  of  the  Stoics  and  of  Spinoza,  was 
unintellectual,  lazy,  and  self-indulgent;  for  he  simply  felt 
jovially  that  everything  real  was  good  enough,  and  that 
he  was  good  enough  himself.  In  him  Bohemia  rebelled 
against  the  genteel  tradition;  but  the  reconstruction  that 


\\\ 


I 


i: 


.1 


GENTEEL  TRADITION  IN  AMEBIC  AN  PHILOSOPHY.     371 

alone  can  justify  revolution  did  not  ensue.  His  attitude, 
in  principle,  was  utterly  disintegrating;  his  poetic  genius 
fell  back  to  the  lowest  level,  perhaps,  to  which  it  is  possible 
for  poetic  genius  to  fall.  He  reduced  his  imagination  to 
a  passive  sensorium  for  the  registering  of  impressions.  No 
element  of  construction  remained  in  it,  and  therefore 
no  element  of  penetration.  But  his  scope  was  wide;  and 
his  lazy,  desultory  apprehension  was  poetical.  His  work, 
for  the  very  reason  that  it  is  so  rudimentary,  contains  a 
beginning,  or  rather  many  beginnings,  that  might  possibly 
grow  into  a  noble  moral  imagination,  a  worthy  filling  for 
the  human  mind.  An  American  in  the  nineteenth  century 
who  completely  disregarded  the  genteel  tradition  could 
hardly  have  done  more. 

But  there  is  another  distinguished  man,  lately  lost  to 
this  country,  who  has  given  some  rude  shocks  to  this  tra- 
dition and  who,  as  much  as  Whitman,  may  be  regarded  as 
representing  the  genuine,  the  long  silent  American  mind — 
I  mean  William  James.  He  and  his  brother  Henry  were 
as  tightly  swaddled  in  the  genteel  tradition  as  any  infant 
geniuses  could  be,  for  they  were  born  in  Cambridge,  and 
in  a  Swedenborgian  household.  Yet  they  burst  those  bands 
almost  entirely.  The  ways  in  which  the  two  brothers  freed 
themselves,  however,  are  interestingly  different.  Mr.  Henry 
James  has  done  it  by  adopting  the  point  of  view  of  the 
outer  world,  and  by  turning  the  genteel  American  tradition, 
as  he  turns  everything  else,  into  a  subject-matter  for 
analysis.  For  him  it  is  a  curious  habit  of  mind,  intimately 
comprehended,  to  be  compared  with  other  habits  of  mind, 
also  well  known  to  him.  Thus  he  has  overcome  the  genteel 
tradition  in  the  classic  way,  by  understanding  it.  With 
William  James  too  this  infusion  of  worldly  insight  and 
European  sympathies  was  a  potent  influence,  especially  in 
his  earlier  days;  but  the  chief  source  of  his  liberty  was 
another.  It  was  his  personal  spontaneity,  similar  to  that 
of  Emerson,  and  his  personal  vitality,  similar  to  that  of 
nobody  else.     Convictions  and  ideas  came  to  him,  so  to 


372 


UNITEBSirr  CHBONICLE. 


speak    from  the  subsoil.     He  had  a  prophetic  sympathy 
^th  'the  da.-ning  sentiments  of  the  age,  w>th  the  moods 
of  the  dumb  majority.     His  scattered  words  caught  fire 
in  many  parts  of  the  Wd.     His  way  of  thmkmg  and 
feeling 'represented  the  true  America,  «!^ ^^^7  Thu" 
a  measure  the  whole  ultra-modern,  radical  world.     Thus 
•he  eluded  the  genteel  tradition  in  the  romantic  way    by 
continuing  it  into  its  opposite.    The  romantic  n»nd   glori- 
fied in  Hegel's  dialectic  (which  is  not  dialectic  at  all,  but 
a  sort  of  tragi-comic  history  of  experience),  is  always  ren- 
dering its  thoughts  unrecognizable  through  the  infusion 
of  new  insights,  and  through  the  insensible  trans  "rmat'on 
of  the  moral  feeling  that  accompanies  them,  till  at  last 
it  has  completely  reversed  its  old  J«dgni«nte  under  cover 
of  expanding  them.     Thus  the  genteel  tradition  was  M 
a  merry  dance  when  it  fell  again  into  the  hands  of  a  gen- 
uine and  vigorous  romanticist,  like  William  James^    He 
Stored  thefr  revolutionary  force  to  its  neutrahzed  de- 
ments, bv  picking  them  out  afresh,  and  emphasizing  them 
separately,  according  to  his  personal  predilections. 
.    %or  or.;  thing,  William  James  kept  his  mind  and  heart 

^ide  open  to  all  that  might  ^e^"^'  *«  P»"°  J'  ^^^ 
personal,  or  visionary  in  religion  and  philosophy     He  gave 

a  sincerely  respectful  hearing  to  ^^'^^'f^''^^^^   for 
spiritualists,  wizards,  cranks,  quacks,  and  ^^^^^^^J''' 
it  is  hard  to  draw  the  line,  and  James  was  not  wiUing  to 
draw  it  prematurely.    He  thought,  with  his  -f -«<i^ty' 
that  any  of  these  might  have  something  *»  t^*''^^'"'^^  ™^ 
lame  the  halt,  the  blind,  and  those  speaking  with  tongues 
could  come  to  him  with  the  certainty  of  finding  sympathy; 
and  if  they  were  not  healed,  at  least  they  were  comforted 
that  a  famous  professor  should  take  them  so  seriously ;  and 
they  began  to  feel  that  after  all  to  have  only  one  leg^  J 
one  hand,  or  one  eye,  or  to  have  three,  might  be  in  itseK 
BO  less  beauteous  than  to  have  just  t^"'  ^'^e  *"^J 
maiority      Thus  William  James  became  the  friend  and 
Sper  of  those  groping,  nervous,  half-educated,  spiritually 


GENTEEL  TRADITION  IN  AMEBIC  AN  PHILOSOPHY.     373 

disinherited,  emotionally  hungry  individuals  of  which 
America  is  full.  He  became,  at  the  same  time,  their  spokes- 
man and  representative  before  the  learned  world;  and  he 
made  it  a  chief  part  of  his  vocation  to  recast  what  the 
learned  world  has  to  offer,  so  that  as  far  as  possible  it 
might  serve  the  needs  and  interests  of  these  people. 

Yet  the  normal  practical  masculine  American,  too,  had 
a  friend  in  William  James.  There  is  a  feeling  abroad  now, 
to  which  biology  and  Darwinism  lend  some  color,  that  the- 
ory is  simply  an  instrument  for  practice,  and  intelligence 
merely  a  help  toward  material  survival.  Bears,  it  is  said, 
have  fur  and  claws,  but  poor  naked  man  is  condemned  to 
be  intelligent,  or  he  will  perish.  This  feeling  William 
James  embodied  in  that  theory  of  thought  and  of  truth 
which  he  called  pragmatism.  Intelligence,  he  thought,  is 
no  miraculous,  idle  faculty,  by  which  we  mirror  passively 
any  or  every  thing  that  happens  to  be  true,  reduplicating 
the  real  world  to  no  purpose.  Intelligence  has  its  roots 
and  its  issue  in  the  context  of  events;  it  is  one  kind  of 
practical  adjustment,  an  experimental  act,  a  form  of  vital 
tension.  It  does  not  essentially  serve  to  picture  other  parts 
of  reality,  but  to  connect  them.  This  view  was  not  worked 
out  by  William  James  in  its  psychological  and  historical 
details ;  unfortunately  he  developed  it  chiefly  in  controversy 
against  its  opposite,  which  he  called  intellectualism,  and 
which  he  hated  with  all  the  hatred  of  which  his  kind  heart 
was  capable.  Intellectualism,  as  he  conceived  it,  was  pure ' 
pedantry;  it  impoverished  and  verbalized  everything,  and 
tied  up  nature  in  red  tape.  Ideas  and  rules  that  may  have 
been  occasionally  useful,  it  put  in  the  place  of  the  full- 
blooded  irrational  movement  of  life  which  had  called  them 
into  being;  and  these  abstractions,  so  soon  obsolete,  it  strove 
to  fix  and  to  worship  forever.  Thus  all  creeds  and  theories 
and  all  formal  precepts  sink  in  the  estimation  of  the  prag- 
matist  to  a  local  and  temporary  grammar  of  action;  a 
grammar  that  must  be  changed  slowly  by  time,  and  may 
be  changed  quickly  by  genius.    To  know  things  as  a  whole. 


) 


) 


T 


374 


UNIVEBSITY  CHBONICLE, 


or  as  they  are  eternally,  if  there  is  anything  eternal  in 
them,  is  not  only  beyond  our  powers,  but  would  prove 
worthless,  and  perhaps  even  fatal  to  our  lives.  Ideas 
are  not  mirrors,  they  are  weapons;  their  function  is  to 
prepare  us  to  meet  events,  as  future  experience  may  unroll 
them.  Those  ideas  that  disappoint  us  are  false  ideas ;  those 
to  which  events  are  true  are  true  themselves. 

This  may  seem  a  very  utilitarian  view  of  the  mind ;  and 
I  confess  I  think  it  a  partial  one,  since  the  logical  force 
of  beliefs  and  ideas,  their  truth  or  falsehood  as  assertions, 
has  been  overlooked  altogether,  or  confused  with  the  vital 
force  of  the  material  processes  which  these  ideas  express. 
It  is  an  external  view  only,  which  marks  the  place  and 
conditions  of  the  mind  in  nature,    but  neglects  its  specific 
essence;  as  if  a  jewel  were  defined  as  a  round  hole  in  a 
ring.    Nevertheless,  the  more  materialistically  we  interpret 
the  pragmatist  theory  of  what  the  mind  is,  the  more  vital- 
istic  our  theory  of  nature  will  have  to  become.     If  the 
intellect  is  a  device  produced  in  organic  bodies  to  expedite 
their  processes,  these  organic  bodies  must  have  interests 
and  a  chosen  direction  in  their  life;  otherwise  their  life 
could  not  be  expedited,  nor  could  anything  be  useful  to  it. 
'  In  other  words— and  this  is  a  third  point  at  which  the 
philosophy  of  William  James  has  played  havoc  with  the 
genteel  tradition,  while    ostensibly    defending  it— nature 
must  be  conceived  anthropomorphically  and  in  psycholog- 
i^Tterml   lts~  purposes  are  not  to  be  static  harmonies, 
self-unfolding  destinies,  the  logic  of  spirit,  the  spirit  of 
logic,  or  any  other  formal  method  and  abstract  law;  its 
purposes  are  to  be  concrete  endeavors,  finite  efforts  of  souls 
living  in  an  environment  which  they  transform  ana  oy 
which  they,  too,  are  affected.     A  spirit,  the  divine  spirit 
as  much  as  the  human,  as  this  new  animism  conceives  it, 
is  a  romantic   adventurer.     Itejiitiijre..  ia^undetermined. 
Its  scope,  its  duration,  and  the  quality  of  its  life,  are  all 
contingent.     This  spirit  grows;  it  buds  and  sends  forth 
feelers,  sounding  the  depths  around  for  such  other  centera 


GENTEEL  TRADITION  IN  AMERICAN  PHILOSOPHY.     375 

of  force  or  life  as  may  exist  there.  It  has  a  vital  momen- 
tum, but  no  predetermined  goal.  It  uses  its  past  as  a 
stepping-stone,  or  rather  as  a  diving-board,  but  has  an 
absolutely  fresh  will  at  each  moment  to  plunge  this  way 
or  that  into  the  unknown.  The  universe  is  an  experiment ; 
it  is  unfinished.  It  has  no  ultimate  or  total  nature,  be- 
cause it  has  no  end.  It  embodies  no  formula  or  statable 
law;  any  formula  is  at  best  a  poor  abstraction,  describing 
what,  in  some  region  and  for  some  time,  may  be  the  most 
striking  characteristic  of  existence ;  the  law  is  a  description 
a  posteriori  of  the  habit  things  have  chosen  to  acquire, 
and  which  they  may  possibly  throw  off  altogether.  What 
a  day  may  bring  forth  is  uncertain ;  uncertain  even  to  God. 
Omniscience  is  impossible;  time  is  real;  what  had  been 
omniscience  hitherto  might  discover  something  more  to-day. 
*  *  There  shall  be  news, '  *  William  James  was  fond  of  saying 
with  rapture,  quoting  from  the  unpublished  poem  of  an 
obscure  friend,  ** there  shall  be  news  in  heaven !'*  There 
is  almost  certainly,  he  thought,  a  God  now;  there  may  be 
several  gods,  who  might  exist  together,  or  one  after  the 
other.  We  might,  by  our  conspiring  sympathies,  help  to 
make  a  new  one.  Much  in  us  is  doubtless  immortal;  we 
survive  death  for  some  time  in  a  recognizable  form;  but 
what  our  career  and  transformations  may  be  in  the  sequel, 
we  cannot  tell,  although  we  may  help  to  determine  them 
by  our  daily  choices.  Observation  must  be  continual,  if 
our  ideas  are  to  remain  true.  Eternal  vigilance  is  the  price 
of  knowledge ;  perpetual  hazard,  perpetual  experiment  keep 
quick  the  edge  of  life. 

This  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  a  new  philosophical  vista; 
it  is  a  conception  never  before  presented,  although  implied, 
perhaps,  in  various  quarters,  as  in  Norse  and  even  Greek 
mythology.  It  is  a  vision  radically  empirical  and  radically 
romantic;  and  as  William  James  himself  used  to  say,  the 
vision  and  not  the  arguments  of  a  philosopher  is  the  inter- 
esting and  influential  thing  about  him.     William  James, 


\ 


376 


UNIVEB8ITY  CHBONICLE. 


rather  too  generously,  attributed  this  vision  to  M.  Berg- 
son,  and  regarded  him  in  consequence  as  a  philosopher  of 
the  first  rank,  whose  thought  was  to  be  one  of  the  turning- 
points  in  history.  M.  Bergson  had  killed  intellectualism. 
It  was  his  book  on  creative  evolution,  said  James  with 
humorous  emphasis,  that  had  come  at  last  to  ''ecraser 
Vinfdme.''  We  may  suspect,  notwithstanding,  that  intel- 
lectualism, infamous  and  crushed,  will  survive  the  blow; 
and  if  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  were  now 
alive,  and  heard  that  there  shall  be  news  in  heaven,  he 
would  doubtless  say  that  there  may  possibly  be  news  there, 
but  that  under  the  sun  there  is  nothing  new— not  even 
radical  empiricism  or  radical  romanticism,  which  from  the 
beginning  of  the  world  has  been  the  philosophy  of  those 
who  as  yet  had  had  little  experience;  for  to  the  blinking 
little  child  it  is  not  merely  something  in  the  world  that  is 
new  daily,  but  everything  is  new  all  day. 

I  am  not  concerned  with  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  that 
controversy ;  my  point  is  only  that  William  James,  in  this 
genial  evolutionary  view  of  the  world,  has  given  a  rude 
shock  to  the  genteel  tradition.    What !    The  world  a  grad- 
ual improvization?    Creation  unpremeditated?    God  a  sort 
of  young  poet  or  struggling  artist?    William  James  is  an 
advocate  of  theism ;  pragmatism  adds  one  to  the  evidences 
of  religion ;  that  is  excellent.    But  is  not  the  cool  abstract 
piety  of  the  genteel  getting  more  than  it  asks  for?    This 
empirical  naturalistic  God  is  too  crude  and  positive  a  force ; 
he  will  work  miracles,  he  will  answer  prayers,  he  may 
inhabit  distinct  places,  and  have  distinct  conditions  under 
which  alone  he  can  operate;  he  is  a  neighboring  being, 
whom  we  can  act  upon,  and  rely  upon  for  specific  aids, 
as  upon  a  personal  friend,  or  a  physician,  or  an  insurance 
company.     How  disconcerting!     Is  not  this  new  theology 
a  little  like  superstition?     And  yet  how  interesting,  how 
exciting,  if  it  should  happen  to  be  true!    I  am  far  from 
wishing  to  suggest  that  such  a  view  seems  to  me  more 
probable  than    conventional    idealism   or  than   Christian 


GENTEEL  TBADITION  IN  AMEBIC  AN  PHILOSOPHY.     377 

orthodoxy.  All  three  are  in  the  region  of  dramatic  system- 
making  and  myth,  to  which  probabilities  are  irrelevant. 
If  one  man  says  the  moon  is  sister  to  the  sun,  and  another 
that  she  is  his  daughter,  the  question  is  not  which  notion 
is  more  probable,  but  whether  either  of  them  is  at  all  ex- 
pressive. The  so-called  evidences  are  devised  afterwards, 
when  faith  and  imagination  have  prejudged  the  issue.  The 
force  of  William  James's  new  theology,  or  romantic  cos- 
mology, lies  only  in  this:  that  it  has  broken  the  spell  of 
the  genteel  tradition,  and  enticed  faith  in  a  new  direction, 
which  on  second  thoughts  may  prove  no  less  alluring  than 
the  old.  The  important  fact  is  not  that  the  new  fancy 
might  possibly  be  true — who  shall  know  that? — but  that 
it  has  entered  the  heart  of  a  leading  American  to  conceive 
and  to  cherish  it.  The  genteel  tradition  cannot  be  dis- 
lodged by  these  insurrections;  there  are  circles  to  which 
it  is  still  congenial,  and  where  it  will  be  preserved.  But 
it  has  been  challenged  and  (what  is  perhaps  more  insid- 
ious) it  has  been  discovered.  No  one  need  be  brow-beaten 
any  longer  into  accepting  it.  No  one  need  be  afraid,  for 
instance,  that  his  fate  is  sealed  because  some  young  prig 
may  call  him  a  dualist;  the  pint  would  call  the  quart  a 
dualist,  if  you  tried  to  pour  the  quart  into  him.  We  need 
not  be  afraid  of  being  less  profound,  for  being  direct  and 
sincere.  The  intellectual  world  may  be  traversed  in  many 
directions;  the  whole  has  not  been  surveyed;  there  is  a 
great  career  in  it  open  to  talent.  That  is  a  sort  of  knell, 
that  tolls  the  passing  of  the  genteel  tradition.  Something 
else  is  now  in  the  field;  something  else  can  appeal  to  the 
imagination,  and  be  a  thousand  times  more  idealistic  than 
academic  idealism,  which  is  often  simply  a  way  of  white- 
washing and  adoring  things  as  they  are.  The  illegitimate 
monopoly  which  the  genteel  tradition  had  established  over 
what  ought  to  be  assumed  and  what  ought  to  be  hoped  for 
has  been  broken  down  by  the  first-born  of  the  family,  by 
the  genius  of  the  race.  Henceforth  there  can  hardly  be 
the  same  peace  and  the  same  pleasure  in  hugging  the  old 


^ 


IV 


378 


UNIVEB8ITT  CEBONICLE, 


proprieties.  Hegel  will  be  to  the  next  generation  what 
Sir  William  Hamilton  was  to  the  last.  Nothing  will  have 
been  disproved,  but  everything  will  have  been  abandoned. 
An  honest  man  has  spoken,  and  the  cant  of  the  genteel 
tradition  has  become  harder  for  young  lips  to  repeat. 

With  this  I  have  finished  such  a  sketch  as  I  am  here 
able  to  offer  you  of  the  genteel  tradition  in  American 
philosophy.  The  subject  is  complex,  and  calls  for  many 
an  excursus  and  qualifying  footnote ;  yet  I  think  the  main 
outlines  are  clear  enough.  The  chief  fountains  of  this 
tradition  were  Calvinism  and  transcendentalism.  Both 
were  living  fountains ;  but  to  keep  them  alive  they  required, 
one  an  agonized  conscience,  and  the  other  a  radical  subjec- 
tive criticism  of  knowledge.  When  these  rare  metaphysical 
preoccupations  disappeared — and  the  Amerioan  atmosphere 
is  not  favorable  to  either  of  them — the  two  systems  ceased 
to  be  inwardly  understood;  they  subsisted  as  sacred  mys- 
teries only ;  and  the  combination  of  the  two  in  some  trans- 
cendental system  of  the  universe  (a  contradition  in  prin- 
ciple) was  doubly  artificial.  Besides,  it  could  hardly  be 
held  with  a  single  mind.  Natural  science,  history,  the  be- 
liefs implied  in  labor  and  invention,  could  not  be  disre- 
garded altogether;  so  that  the  transcendental  philosopher 
was  condemned  to  a  double  allegiance,  and  to  not  letting 
his  left  hand  know  the  bluff  that  his  right  hand  was  putting 
up.  Nevertheless,  the  difficulty  in  bringing  practical  inar- 
ticulate convictions  to  expression  is  very  great,  and  the 
genteel  tradition  has  subsisted  in  the  academic  mind,  for 
want  of  anything  equally  academic  to  take  its  place. 

The  academic  mind,  however,  has  had  its  flanks  turned. 
On  the  one  side  came  the  revolt  of  the  Bohemian  temper- 
ament, with  its  poetry  of  crude  naturalism;  on  the  other 
side  came  an  impassioned  empiricism,  welcoming  popular 
religious  witnesses  to  the  unseen,  reducing  science  to  an 
instrument  of  success  in  action,  and  declaring  the  universe 
to  be  wild  and  young,  and  not  to  be  harnessed  by  the  logic 
of  any  school. 


I 


GENTEEL  TBADITION  IN  AMERICAN  PHILOSOPHY.     379 


This  revolution,  I  should  think,  might  well  find  an  echo 
among  you,  who  live  in  a  thriving  society,  and  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  virgin  and  prodigious  world. '  When  you  transform 
nature  to  your  uses,  when  you  experiment  with  her  forces, 
and  reduce  them  to  industrial  agents,  you  cannot  feel  that 
nature  was  made  by  you  or  for  you,  for  then  these  adjust- 
ments would  have  been  preeestablished.     You  must  feel, 
rather,  that  you  are  an  offshoot  of  her  life ;  one  brave  little 
force  among  her  immense  forces.    When  you  escape,  as  you 
love  to  do,  to  your  forests  and  your  Sierras,  I  am  sure  again 
that  you  do  not  feel  you  made  them,  or  that  they  were 
made  for  you.    They  have  grown,  as  you  have  grown,  only 
more   massively  and  more  slowly.     In  theix_  non-human 
beauty  and  peace  they  stir  the  sub-human  depths  and  the 
superhuman  possibilities  of  your  own  spirit.    It  is  no  trans- 
cendental logic  that  they  teach ;  and  they  give  no  sign  of 
any  deliberate  morality  seated  in  the  world.     It  is  rather 
the  vanity  and  superficiality  of  all  logic,  the  needlessness 
of  argument,  the  finitude  of  morals,  the  strength  of  time, 
the  fertility  of  matter,  the  variety,  the  unspeakable  variety, 
of  possible  life.    Everything  is  measurable  and  conditioned, 
indefinitely  repeated,  yet,  in  repetition,  twisted  somewhat 
from  its  old  form.     Everywhere  is  beauty  and  nowhere 
permanence,  everywhere  an  incipient  harmony,  nowhere  an 
intention,  nor  a  responsibility,  nor  a  plan.    It  is  the  irre- 
sistible suasion  of  this  daily  spectacle,  it  is  the  daily  dis- 
cipline of  contact  with  things,  so  different  from  the  verbal 
discipline  of  the  schools,  that  will,  I  trust,  inspire  the  phil- 
osophy of  your  children.     A  Californian  whom  I  had  re- 
cently the  pleasure  of  meeting  observed  that,  if  the  phil- 
osophers had  lived  among  your  mountains  their  systems 
would  have  been  different  from  what  they  are.    Certainly, 
I  should  say,  very  different  from  what  those  systems  are 
from  which  the  European  genteel  tradition  has  handed 
down  since  Socrates;    for    these    systems  are  egotistical; 
directly  or  indirectly  they  are  anthropocentric,  and  inspired 
by  the  conceited  notion  that  m^n*  {>r*:hiiimain:ii'ai5oiiV*or  ti/e 


/    '      :' 


•     » .• 


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UNIVEBSITY  CHBONICLE. 


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human  distinction  between  good  and  evil,  is  the  center  and 
pivot  of  the  universe.  That  is  what  the  mountains  and  the 
woods  should  make  you  at  last  ashamed  to  assert.  From 
what,  indeed,  does  the  society  of  nature  liberate  you,  that 
you  find  it  so  sweet?  It  is  hardly  (is  it?)  that  you  wish 
to  forget  your  past,  or  your  friends,  or  that  you  have  any 
secret  contempt  for  your  present  ambitions.  You  respect 
these,  you  respect  them  perhaps  too  much;  you  are  not 
suffered  by  the  genteel  tradition  to  criticize  or  to  reform 
them  at  all  radically.  No;  it  is  the  yoke  of  this  genteel 
tradition  itself,  your  tyrant  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave, 
that  these  primeval  solitudes  lift  from  your  shoulders. 
They  suspend  your  forced  sense  of  your  own  importance 
not  merely  as  individuals,  but  even  as  men.  They  allow 
you,  in  one  happy  moment,  at  once  to  play  and  to  worship, 
to  take  yourselves  simply,  humbly,  for  what  you  are,  and 
to  salute  the  wild,  indifferent,  non-censorious  infinity  of 
nature.  You  are  admonished  that  what  you  can  do  avails 
little  materially,  and  in  the  end  nothing.  At  the  same 
time,  through  wonder  and  pleasure,  you  are  taught  specu- 
lation. You  learn  what  you  are  really  fitted  to  do,  and 
where  lie  your  natural  dignity  and  joy,  namely,  in  repre- 
senting many  things,  without  being  them,  and  in  letting 
your  imagination,  through  sympathy,  celebrate  and  echo 
their  life.  Because  the  peculiarity  of  man  is  that  his  ma- 
chinery for  reaction  on  external  things  has  involved  an 
imaginative  transcript  of  these  things,  which  is  preserved 
and  suspended  in  his  fancy;  and  the  interest  and  beauty 
of  this  inward  landscape,  rather  than  any  fortunes  that 
may  await  his  body  in  the  outer  world,  constitute  his  proper 
happiness.  By  their  mind,  its  scope,  quality,  and  temper, 
,  we  estimate  men,  for  by  the  mind  only  do  we  exist  as  men, 
■  and  are  more  than  so  many  storage-batteries  for  material 
;  energy.  Let  us  therefore  be  frankly  human.  Let  us  be 
content  to  live  in  the  mind. 


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